NO NEWS
That was Lucy's last piece of excitement for some considerable time.
When, having been carried back to the palace, she fell weeping into
the arms of her friends, there began for her and the others a life of
the most bewildering monotony. A part of the palace, consisting of a
small pillared hall, and two or three sleeping apartments, with the
shaded alley in which Chunder Singh and Lutfullah had met them first,
and the rajah's summer-house were allotted to them. Day after day, with
clock-like regularity, a liberal provision of meats and drinks, water
to their hearts' desire, fresh garments, sweetmeats, and books were
brought to them. They had everything, in fact, but that for which they
craved the most--news.
Chunder Singh and Lutfullah went to see them occasionally, and sent
morning and night to inquire after their health. Mr. Montgomery, the
Resident, paid them periodical visits, but there was no word of the
rajah.
Mysterious to the ladies, to Aglaia, to whom her deliverer was
everything, this sudden disappearance was a shock as cruel as it was
inexplicable. Where had her Daddy-Tom gone? she would ask piteously.
Why hadn't he said good-bye to her? Couldn't he send her a letter if
he liked? Questions which no one, not even the wise Chunder Singh,
could answer. Had it not been for baby Dick, who was one of the most
restless of little persons, she would have suffered even more severely.
In the new healthy atmosphere that surrounded him, Dick had recovered
his vigour. The wizened little face was filling up. Roses and dimples
were asserting their rights. The long pent-up limbs were expanding
luxuriously in all sorts of joyous activities, which Aglaia, who had
begun by being his slave, was bound to share. Never was a merrier or a
more irrepressible little man than Dick.
Sometimes, worn out by games and laughter, he would fall asleep, and
then Aglaia would steal quietly to the lattice, and, the tears dropping
from her eyes, would watch and watch. 'Oh! if he would only come--if he
would only come!'
'Everyone goes away,' she said to Lucy one day. 'I wonder why?'
'I don't know, dear,' said Lucy, who was becoming more and more
melancholy. 'I suppose they must.'
'He needn't,' said Aglaia proudly. 'He is the master of everyone here.'
'Your Daddy-Tom, as you call him, is like the Good Shepherd in the
parable,' said Lucy. 'Do you remember?'
'Yes,' said Aglaia, in a low voice, her little face becoming strangely
set. 'He left all the others.'
'And he went after the one that was lost,' filled in Lucy with
a sigh. 'I always thought it was uninteresting to be one of the
ninety-and-nine. I am sure of it now.'
'I don't understand,' said Aglaia wearily.
'Of course you don't, and I am a goose--an ungrateful goose, too,' said
Lucy, her eyes filling with tears. 'If he only brings back Grace----'
'Is that her name?' said Aglaia.
'Yes; isn't it pretty? And it's just like herself. Dearest Grace! We
should never be dull or miserable if she were here.'
'Tell me what she is like,' said Aglaia.
'What Grace is like? Ah! that's not so easy,' said Lucy
enthusiastically. 'She is perfectly lovely to begin with, tall and
very slender--oh! my darling'--breaking into tears and sobs--'if
you are alive, you must be more than slender now. All these days
and nights! I can't bear to think of it. She was so gentle, too. I
never heard her complain once. And her temper was that of an angel.
Everyone--even the servants--adored her. It was through Tikaram's love
for her that we got away at all. As for the man who brought us here, he
simply worshipped her. Don't you hope she may come back safely, Aglaia?'
'Yes,' answered the child, briefly and sadly.
'But you don't seem a bit sorry for her, you funny little thing.'
Aglaia lifted her limpid eyes and fixed them on Lucy's face. 'I'm not,'
she said.
'Now why, you little barbarian?'
'Because----' began Aglaia, and then she turned away. 'I don't like to
talk of it,' she said, and went off to Dick, leaving Lucy to wonder
over her curious precocity.
* * * * *
But although the ladies heard nothing of what went on in the city,
there was considerable uneasiness and excitement abroad. When the
elders in the State found out as a certain fact that their young rajah
had given them the slip they tried to keep the uncomfortable knowledge
to themselves. In his room they found a slip of paper, written in
his hand, and addressed to Chunder Singh. It was his hope, he said,
that his friends would not discover his absence until his return,
when he would give them every explanation; but, in case of delay or
obstruction, he begged that the elders of Gumilcund would carry on the
business of the State as they had been accustomed to do. He did not
himself anticipate any inconvenience from his own enforced absence.
When he had accomplished the purpose upon which, as Chunder Singh knew,
his heart was set, he would return, and then it would rest with them
whether they would again accept him as their rajah, or choose rather to
be governed by one of themselves. In the meantime he begged to assure
them of his faithfulness to the principles which had been laid down by
his predecessors for his guidance.
This, to the elders of Gumilcund, while reassuring from one point of
view, was disappointing in another. Most, if not all, had given full
credence to the assurance of their late rajah that, in the person of
the successor he had chosen, he would himself return to them. To us
of the West such a belief may appear childish. But we must remember
the difference between our standpoint and that of the Asiatic. The
doctrine of the transmigration of souls from body to body, which to us
seems unreal and fantastic, has, from the earliest ages, formed a part
of the Eastern creeds. And, this granted, there could not surely be
anything extraordinarily unlikely in one of high spiritual rank being
permitted, if not to choose, at least to foresee, his next incarnation.
In any case this was their belief, a belief which the singular likeness
between their late rajah and his successor, with rumours which had
come to one and another of mysterious voices holding communion with
him, had served to confirm. But his departure at this critical moment,
an action at variance with what they knew would have been the will of
their late ruler, and his apparent readiness to sacrifice his State so
long as he could save a single English captive, somewhat shook them in
this view. Nevertheless they tried their hardest to hide the rajah's
flight from the people. Do what they would, however, it leaked out,
and with it came other distressing and alarming news. The surrender of
the Cawnpore entrenchments, and the awful massacres that followed: the
general rebellion in Oude, followed swiftly by the siege of the Lucknow
Residency, and the death of Sir Henry Lawrence: uneasy rumours from the
Punjaub, where the disaffected Poorbeahs were being held at bay like
savage animals, and the delay at Delhi--these and many other rumours
came pouring in as the month of July ran its course. It says much for
the loyalty and strength of Chunder Singh, who was now the ruling
spirit in the councils of the Gumilcund elders, that the terror and
despair which were beginning to be felt amongst the populace never once
touched them.
And yet there was much cause for uneasiness. Chunder Singh, indeed,
who had visited England twice, the first time with Byrajee Pirtha
Raj, his late master, and the second in obedience to his dying wish
to further the interests of his successor, believed profoundly in
the power of England; but he knew also how apt she is to try the
effect of small measures, little outbursts which, to the uninitiated,
seem nothing more than ebullitions of temper, before, armed with her
full strength, she stands out wrathfully to assert her will. Such
delay practised now would mean, if not the total subversion of the
English power in India, at least the temporary ruin of those who had
accepted her as the Paramount Power. It did not need the threatening
letters which, in spite of all their efforts, were continually poured
into Gumilcund to advertise them of what their fate would be if the
English forces--coming down from the Punjaub and up from Calcutta and
Bombay--met with any serious defeat. Chunder Singh and his friends
knew very well what assault and sack meant when a baffled Asiatic army
were inside the gates of a wealthy city. But with all this no thought
of compromise ever entered their minds. To the terror-stricken people,
merchants and handicraftsmen, who came flocking to them for advice they
had always the same answer: 'We have gone too far to retreat now. If
the worst comes to the worst we must defend our city to the last.'
The inquiries about the rajah were more difficult to answer. His
absence had considerably increased the alarm of the people. For the
belief held by the men of education and culture in Gumilcund, as
it filtered down to the lower strata of the populace, had lost its
vagueness, and had gained in strength. The curiously dramatic entry of
the young rajah into his city, and the effectiveness of his various
appearances, gave colour to the general superstition. He seemed to
many of them not a man at all, but a divine being whose presence was
a guarantee of the city's continuance in safety and prosperity. That
this God-given ruler should leave them at such a crisis as the present
was inexplicable save in one way--that the spiritual beings, who were
said to direct him, had warned him of the coming evil and helped him to
escape--a theory confirmed by the circumstance that no one could tell
them how their prince went. In spite of all Chunder Singh and Lutfullah
and Vishnugupta could say, the hearts of the people were heavy within
them, and their minds presaged evil.